Will we be seated early?

[Koda]

Just wondering if any restaurants will seat you early if you show up before your ADR time. For example, if you have a 7:00 Chef Mickeys reservation, and your group is ready to leave the MK, and gets to Chef Mickeys by 5:00, would they seat you as soon as a table is available, or would they make you wait until 7:00?

 

[boswellnakia]

Just wondering if any restaurants will seat you early if you show up before your ADR time. For example, if you have a 7:00 Chef Mickeys reservation, and your group is ready to leave the MK, and gets to Chef Mickeys by 5:00, would they seat you as soon as a table is available, or would they make you wait until 7:00?

I would think Chef Mickey's would be a hard for availability. If they had space and open reservations, it might not be a problem. But for CM, I wonder if they would have the open space. I wonder if you could call CM and check before you arrived?

Several years ago, we stopped by a restaurant (I don't remember which) about eating early and they told us to come back 30 minutes prior to our ressie and try.

 

[chocovrdmicears]

At Chef Mickeys they will more than likely tell you to come back for your scheduled ADR time.

 

[aubriee]

Probably not. We've tried to check in early at Crystal Palace, Le Cellier, Cape May, and Jikos and all four told us to come back closer to our ADR time. Now we have checked in early at a few other places, but never more than maybe 45 minutes early. Ohanas once allowed us to check in about 45 minutes prior to our ADR time, but we didn't get seated until well after after our ADR time, so wasted 90 minutes sitting and waiting. There were parties our same size, arriving after us and being seated.

 

[mousefan1972]

If your trip is during free dining, the restaurants will be very full and chances are you will sit for 2 hours in a very loud, busy Chef Mickey's waiting area. Even if your trip is not during free dining, it is very unlikely they could seat you 2 hours early.

 

[nkereina]

As others have said, they will treat you like a walk up in that instance and sometimes walk ups aren't even sat. We've shown up 20 mins before an ADR and have been able to be seated, but I wouldn't count on much earlier than that.

 

[photo_chick]

Just wondering if any restaurants will seat you early if you show up before your ADR time. For example, if you have a 7:00 Chef Mickeys reservation, and your group is ready to leave the MK, and gets to Chef Mickeys by 5:00, would they seat you as soon as a table is available, or would they make you wait until 7:00?

I remembered our ressie time for CRT wrong on the last trip and we got there an hour and a half too early. At first they said we'd have to wait, but then as we were walking off to do something they called us back and seated us. They were not busy at the time though, there were lots of empty tables, and I think that had more to do with it than anything.

 

[mom2rtk]

Unless they have a lot of open tables (not common at CM) they probably won't even check you in early. We have asked to check in about an hour early at LeCellier and were completely turned down. Couldn't even check in and wait. Same thing at CRT. They wouldn't check us in until 15 minutes prior to our ADR time.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We've tried to check in early a few times and been told to come back 15 minutes before our ADR time, and there were a couple of times that we were allowed to check in and were then seated. These were at different restaurants at WDW. It can't hurt to ask, but be prepared to be told no.

 

[Nadjalu]

We have had very different experiences than the other posters.

All of these happened DURING free dining.

At our LeCellier dinner, we found ourselves at Canada an hour and half early. I was exhausted and just wanted to rest. So we asked if we could check in. We were told we would have to wait that hour and half until our ADR time. We should come back. I said, that is ok, we'll just check in and wait there. (truth be told I wanted in that air conditioned waiting area...lol).
Within 5mins we were called to our table, seated and ordered immediately. We were done eating, check paid and was leaving just as our adr time came.

We always go early to Ohana. I try to get there an hour before our adr, simply to enjoy the Poly atmosphere and have a drink. While we are not seated as early as LeCellier, we are always sat before our adr, whether it is 5mins or 15mins.

Another time we arrived at LTT 2 hours before adr for dinner and asked if we could eat early, they said sure, seated us and had a wonderful time.

We have shown up to both Crystal Palace and Chef Mickey's 1/2 to and hour early and have been seated within 5mins.

The longest time we have ever waited was at Crystal Palace - when we arrived 5mins before adr time. We waited 20mins for that one. ----go figure!